Malton Diary / FD Rudkewiecz

[Sulkdodds]

The thoughts of my old UrbanDead character from a long time ago, which I recently came across and post here for your amusement - I mean hey, why not? Based on real game events; some embellishment obvious. Will update daily!



9 October, 2005

Fell out of the sky and hit the ground - managed not to break my legs on impact. City is eerily quiet and empty; no signs of survivors. Saw a flare go up a mile or so east; decided to avoid it. So...where to start?

Been hopping rooftops all the way across East Boundwood, ghosting into fire and police stations and scavenging equipment. Saw a few survivors, lots of weird messages scrawled on walls. I saw a few of them wandering around...them. Infected. Dead people. Managed to avoid them for the most part.

Here in Challanger Crescent PD in East Boundwood, holed up with around fifty other people. Flares keep going up, there's gunfire in the distance.

 

[Sloth]

I should play that again...

Nice piece Sulks

 

[Sulkdodds]

10 October, 2005

Overnight the barricades had been torn down. We couldn't see what was on the other side; might have been one determined zed or an army. Can't see shit out there. Barricades have been built back up but everyone in here is nervous. Bale Mall is apparently clear; I hopped over to a library to loot some books, hopped over to the neighbouring hospital. Seems there's somewhat of a fallback position there; very safe and very secure. Checked outside then realised I was in trouble. Took me two hours just to find a building with roof access; got back to the PD eventually but I was so damn tired. Read some books. Literature sucks.

 

[Sulkdodds]

11 October, 2005

Left the PD and started south. I'll be back in time, but not before I've got me some supplies and kicked some zombie ass. Swiped a pistol clip before I left, then jumped over to the local hospital (our fallback position). Full of coughing, trigger-happy citizens. I exited at street level and began south. The streets were empty, plastic bags like tumbleweed. Bit of a run-in with the undead at an auto-repair place - stuck an axe in his face but his friends arrived. I saw someone beating up a zed outside the Bale Mall, decided to skirt round. At this point I was dog-tired and I felt like I had reached my limit, so I crawled over a hospital barricade just west of the mall and quickly stole inside.

The place was bustling. There were armed citizens and even some soldiers patrolling all around, across gantries, congregating in shops - they had the place seriously locked down. Big barricades and everything. Sprayed up on the wall in blood red was 'This Mall belongs to ALF, convert or die.' I don't know who the hell Alf is, but I decided to give them a wide berth. Of course, I made sure to steal a GPS unit from a survival shop before I returned to St Matthew's Hospital.

 

[Sulkdodds]

12 October, 2005

After a long-ass sleep I decided I'd strike out east to see if I could identify areas of zed infestation, and to maybe kill a few for myself. Before I started I hopped back across to Bale Mall. Man did it look different in daylight. There were these massive Jesus statues all over the place - arms spread wide, big shit-eating grin; the place looked like a tacky Vegas Casino. Maybe the Vatican Casino.

After making off with a baseball bat and some beer (man's gotta have sustenance after all) I struck out towards Southall Mansion - at the very least it'd have some nice looting, and it seemed the ideal place for survivors. It's weird to me that I keep banding together with these rag-tag groups holed up in PDs and Hospitals, but that they don't even notice me leaving. Guess it's just convenience. Lots of people pass through here, I was told.

I crossed the Dawbins Museum by rooftop. For the first time it was raining - pissing it down in Malton. Damn near torrential. It looked warm inside the museum, and down through the skylight I saw three men warming themselves in a tiny campfire, burning books or research papers or something down there under the belly of a dinosaur skeleton. But I was on a mission. Wiped rain from my eyes and took a fire escape down into Boyes Park, Yagoton. The park was sodden and muddy and the trees were no shelter. By the time I got to the other side my boots were full of water. A detour to a nearby PD (eerily emtpy) turned up an extra shotgun and some pistol clips. Good to have the supplies even if I still can't shoot for shit.

Finally, Southall Mansion. I padded through the near-flodded, overgrown grounds and shinned up a drainpipe to a second floor window. I was glad of the cover, to be honest: though I hadn't seen a single zed today the rain was getting worse and there was thunder in the distance. Inside, the place was wrecked. It had been rich once but now the busts were broken, the wood pannelling was chipped and broken by bullet impacts, the carpet was stained, papers were strewn over the floor, whole rooms had collapsed and everything was basically ****ed up. All the expensive decor was stripped and burned and torn down. And there were people in there - tramps and muttering hobos wandering the corridors or sitting huddled in the atriums. Survivor syndrome. I'd seen it before - the weird vacant look in the eyes, the total immobility, the eerie stillness. Like the lights are on but nobody's home.

In the East Wing, massive doors swung open on their hinges, a hungry wind whistling through the central lobby and making the chandeliers swing. I decided it wasn't the best place to stay, and crept out through the stables into the Rolls Road Police Dept.

Not much else to report today. After a bit of a break I went hunting in the warehouse district down south (but not too far...word is it's heavy infestation down there). Took a few swipes at a zed but more turned up. A hell of a lot more. I managed to escape the horde and went to ground at Rolls Road again, with a few other random survivors.

It's lonely up here. Haven't seen a flare go up all day.

 

[Jintor]

I would play, but I'm already in like 3 RPs atm.

 

[Sulkdodds]

13 October, 2005

With only a few days until the mission time limit ends, I decided to start checking out areas of zed infestation. And it was infestation I found. Moving south, hopping across buildings, the survivors became sparser, the barricades weaker, and soon there were zeds all about. I tried to axe one, but they're so godamn fast I couldn't even get a hit in. And of course I should have learned by now that they're never alone. Had to make a run for it and now I don't even know where I am, just holed up in some police department with some others. But there's no barricades and the doors were open when I went in. I had to close them myself. Now I'm in here and I can hear their howls on the wind, and I really do not want to be here. But I am so ****ing tired.

It's crazy, but I need to identify the threat. Tomorrow I go on yet further south, further into the heart of darkness.

You bet your ass I like my Conrad.

 

[Sulkdodds]

16 October, 2005

I just woke up in a church with blood on my hands.

And in the church were heaped piles and piles of dead bodies, burying the pews in mountains of flesh and blood. And there were zombies - lots of them - just sort of standing there, doing nothing. Like they were praying. On the wall, someone had written: "do not barricade this revival clinic."

Oh jesus.

The zombies were still standing there when I climbed the stairs, emerged into the stained-glass light of the balcony. There were medical supplies in green military crates strewn all over the place, and a book - a large notebook on a table. I approached it. Then I looked down into the church, at the zeds and the bodies. I looked at my bloody hands. I vomited.

I felt like I was still looking down there, still vomiting, when I went comatose in another anonymous police station two hours later. I could feel it inside me: the disease, the infection, a cancer eating away at my cells. It was still in there, still trying to take me down just so it could pull me right back up again. I stayed still. I didn't want to do anything except sleep, and die, and never get up again. But it was too late for that, wasn't it? The dreams were ****ed up, disturbing. Cannibalism. A shuffling horde all around me - and I was one of them. One of them.

Came to with someone bending over me, injecting me with something. They left without a word. I sat bolt upright, vomited red all over the tiles, coughed blood up on the walls and felt like my brain was exploding. I climbed, up stairs and ladders, coughing all the while, so much I thought I wouldn't have any blood left by the time I reached clean air. I was choking on the stench of death, and blood, and when I finally threw open the roof access and gulped and gasped in the drizzling rain, I felt like I might pass out again.

I'm in another PD now. A mile or so west. And my hands are shaking, because I really don't know what to do. On the way here, I saw one - a zed - and I just smashed and smashed at it with my axe. So angry and I didn't even kill it.

But how do you handle something like that? I was clinically dead for eight hours. And no, before you ask, I didn't see a tunnel of heavenly light, and I wasn't visited by angels. There's just a big blank. And then somehow, I got up again - and walked the city. I'm starting to remember things. I'm starting to remember the pain: unending, infinite, sharp and hot. But there are still gaps. Christ, I could have ****ing eaten someone. My hands were so covered in blood. I tried to wash them, and I scrubbed at them and scrubbed at them, but it wouldn't come off. I got a wire brush and scrubbed them till it hurt, but it wouldn't come off.

It's still raining, and thunder is rolling over Malton. I'm here in a nondescript police station with three shotguns and other survivors. There seem to have been lasting effects. When I look in the mirror, my face is gaunt and cold. My skin's so much paler. And I can see that weird tan on some other survivors. How many times have we died? Maybe this is why nobody ever speaks to eachother in these places.

I have on day. Tomorrow my ride touches down in Malton zoo. I've got one smoke grenade - gotta signal that chopper in and I'll be out of here. And jesus god in heaven, do I want to get out of this city. I must be there when the blackhawk hits the ground.

But after I leave, when the rest of my squad moves in, if they're not going to just nuke this place and have done with it, I'm coming back. I'm coming back to destroy every last zombie in this city.

 

[Sulkdodds]

17 October, 2005

The chopper never came. I struck out south across the rooftops, through the driving rain, and headed towards the great big blackness that was Malton Zoo. As I approached I was forced to drop to ground level; as I got nearer, the grafitti got more ominous. "Zoo is infested." "Stay away." "Braaaaaaaains." By the time I reached the wall, I couldn't tell what was grafitti and what was just blood smeared on concrete.

I dropped down into the Lion Enclosure, now empty and flooded. Suspiciously quiet at first. Waded through the pits and canals, heavily flooded with disgusting water, but it didn't seem like I had much choice. Because as I headed further into Ketchelbank, into the zoo, past messages warning me away, I began to hear them. Zeds, everywhere - their moans and cries like something from another world. More than once I had to take refuge in the shadows or dive underwater to avoid their gazeless stare. The smoke grenade weighed like a lead weight in my utility pocket.

The aquarium was the only building that wasn't flooded. Full of zeds. I climbed to the roof and could look down on the whole zoo - it looked like one of those nazi rallies you see on history programs. But with zombies. There were so many, everywhere...in the end I hopped over to the giraffe house, with its big flat roof. Set down the smoke grenade. Nothing. Nothing turned up. I got so desperate I fired a flare up into the storm, but all that did was start the zeds banging on the walls and climbing up the walls to get at me. I managed to lock myself inside the giraffe house. They were all around, climbing on top of eachother to get in. I only just got away through the sewers.

Now I'm back in the PD and alone in this city again. My ride was conspicuous by its absence. Numb. What the **** am I supposed to do now?

 

[Sulkdodds]

18 October, 2005

Everybody is so ****ing paranoid. Holed up in this sort of front of 3 PDs and the zombie horde is closing the net from the south, from the west, maybe the east. There's a hell of a lot of people in here all armed to the teeth, and every now and then someone drops in through the roof and gives us bad news - 12 zeds to the south, or the PD to the west has just been overrun.

It seems pretty secure in here, but how long can we last? Everybody is talking about leaving, and the zeds are closing in.

 

[Sulkdodds]

20 October, 2005

Shit, that got crazy real fast.

No time to write, but basically there was a big zed attack. After that, some guy tried to kill me. He was crazy, but almost blew my leg off. I just about managed to escape over the rooftops, North to a hospital in Yagoton. Found a few first-aid kits and I'm healing anybody that needs it. Lots of people here, and it's all pretty quiet. Things are peaceful.

But I can still hear the gunfire from the south, and see the flares going up.

 

[Sulkdodds]

25 October, 2005

Nothing much to report. All is quiet...kind of. I've been holed up between this hospital and its neighbouring PD for the last few days, scrounging medical kits, healing. Occasionally I'll head out and smash some zed's head in with my axe, down to the southwest, but I've never seen more than one. It's peaceful. Not much going on around here.

South is a different matter. I've been down there. It's overrun, and I doubt it's much more than a matter of time before the horde moves north. So I'm practising. I'm going out and getting as much experience in as I can before the shit hits the fan.

 

[Sulkdodds]

27 October, 2005

I feel like I've found purpose for the first time since I've dropped in here. Sure, this place is chaotic, constantly echoing with the screams of the dying, corridors vibrating with the tread of running feet - but at least nothing's caught fire and nobody has tried to kill me.

I've become friends with two people in particular - Simon and this crazy calling himself Kirov. Simon's young - real young - and totally clueless as to what's going on, simply running around trying to survive. Kirov just drinks a lot of vodka mainly. There's no spare moments and we spend most of our time healing the sick - it doesn't take much skill when they're just missing a leg. The PD nearby sends all its wounded overhere, we stitch them up and send them back.

Just to the south is that revival clinic. It's still overflowing with corpses and the science guys have their hands full bringing people back - but it's getting dangerous. I never thought I'd be outsmarted by a corpse but there are zeds in there that'll just rip you apart soon as look at you. Snuck in there for easy kills. Then there's the zealots - them as don't know what it's like to be one of them, to crave the flesh. They come down here, barricade the clinic, massacre the zeds and leave. I haven't been involved in any fights but there have been some.

Sure, yeah, so nice and peaceful. ****ing insane is more like it. Sometimes I just have to get out in the fresh air, take a walk down along the string of occupied and barricaded clubs, towers, warehouses, junkyards. I'm even starting to enjoy it. Sometimes I get attacked, but I'm getting better, sad to say, at killing. Least I've found something to do though - with all the shellshocked people that get brought up here from the revival clinic, it really feels like we're making a difference. Even when you can't sleep for their screams.

 

[Sulkdodds]

There now follows an intermission.

 

[Sheepo]

Good stuff, please keep it up.

 

[soulslicer]

feels like 28 days later..